B5 is now under the command of Captain Elizabeth Lochley,
an Earth Force officer hand-picked by Sheridan for her ability to
defuse crises without resorting to violence, and her ability to
fight effectively when required. He has placed her in charge of
all aspects of station operation except political decisions affecting
the Interstellar Alliance.

B5 hasn't rejoined Earth yet. The Alliance is discussing
buying it from Earth. In the meantime it remains an independent state.

Sheridan has allowed a group of rogue human telepaths, led
by a man named Byron (whose psi powers seem to be quite strong) to
establish a colony on Babylon 5.

Narns aren't given their adult names at birth; they're
given temporary ones for the first ten years of their lives, after
which they're allowed to select their true names from whatever pantheon
they've come to believe in. G'Kar was no exception.

G'Kar has assembled a declaration of principles for the
Alliance. It consists of the first page of every holy book of every
race in the Alliance, a reminder that the Alliance is a multitude of
voices and beliefs, all worthy of respect. (See
Analysis)

G'Kar continues to write his own book
("Point of No Return")
and has shown it to other Narn and to Garibaldi. The other Narn
have even begun quoting it.

Sheridan has named Garibaldi the head of the Alliance's
covert operations division.

B5 continues to employ Narns in its security forces.

Sheridan's first assignment in Earthforce was the 54th
North American Unit.

Lochley was described as Ivanova's replacement, but she
really replaced both Ivanova and Sheridan, since the latter isn't in
charge of station affairs any more. Will Lochley bring in additional
staff to help fill that apparent gap?

Both Zack and Lochley are in the unenviable position of
having their predecessors nearby, now civilians but still
second-guessing their decisions.

Sheridan's story about washing his own socks echoes his
conversation with Lorien
("Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?")
about his life being predicated on finding something to live for. In
a less drastic sense, that's exactly what Sheridan's drill instructor
was doing by washing his socks every night. Presumably "washing my
socks" wouldn't have sufficed as an answer to Lorien, though.

How strong is Byron? He was able to project his image to
Lochley, something most telepaths don't seem to be able to do. Is
that simply a normal ability of high-level psis, or is there something
different about Byron? One other example of someone able to push
thoughts to others was Matthew Stoner, Talia's ex-husband
("Soul Mates.")
Another example was
"A Race Through Dark Places,"
in which the combined power of Talia and the rogue telepaths was able
to project images into Bester's mind.

Byron alluded to Franklin's participation in the
underground railroad
("A Race Through Dark Places.")
How many of his people did Franklin assist? Do they feel indebted to
Franklin as a result?

How was the assassin able to steal a Starfury so easily?
It's been previously implied
("Survivors,""A Voice in the Wilderness, part 2")
that Starfury launches -- or more specifically, the launch bay doors
-- are controlled from C&C. If that's true, the assassin might
have had inside help, which would in turn imply a wider conspiracy.

If he did receive inside help, there's some indication (not very
conclusive) that it might have been Lochley. The assassin served
with her in the past. Her evasive answer to Garibaldi implied that
she opposed Sheridan in the civil war. She argued for the inauguration
to proceed on schedule. She would have had the authority to launch
the assassin's Starfury, and she wasn't present at the ceremony.

On the other hand, the assassin may have been the computer expert
Garibaldi supposed, and may have launched the Starfury the same way
he sent untraceable messages to Sheridan. His task would have been
made easier, perhaps, by the fact that it appeared the pilot he knocked
unconscious was getting dressed for a launch -- a Starfury launching
on schedule would presumably raise no alerts in C&C.

How was Garibaldi able to get to a Starfury?
As a civilian (at the time Sheridan hadn't yet appointed him to any
official position) he should have been barred from the launch bay as
well. Of course, by his own admission, Garibaldi is perfectly able to
circumvent B5's security measures when he needs to.

Garibaldi's ship, incidentally, was his own personal Starfury, as
evidenced by the Daffy Duck emblem on the right side, between the
wings -- Garibaldi has been a Daffy fan
from day one (the cartoon he shared with Delenn in
"Midnight on the Firing Line.")

Sheridan's decision to allow Byron's people on B5
may be a point of contention with Lochley, even
though it was arguably a political question from the start. If she
denied Byron's request, she clearly thought it fell within her
jurisdiction to make such decisions, and may now feel that any
decision she makes can be declared a political issue by Sheridan
and overturned.

Sheridan's assumption was that by allowing the colony to
form on the station, he'd be gaining telepathic allies in any future
war between telepaths and normals. But doesn't that depend on the
nature of the war? It might be sparked in such a way that it's not
just a matter of Psi Corps versus everyone else, in which case having a
colony of telepaths, some quite powerful, aboard Babylon 5 would be a
tremendous liability. For example, Edgars' telepath virus
("The Exercise of Vital Powers")
would clearly be seen as a threat by all telepaths, regardless of their
political affiliation, and all normals would be potential carriers.

If Psi Corps propaganda can be believed (comic
"The Psi Corps and You")
the circumstances surrounding the establishment of the Corps (a
telepath foiling the assassination of the Earth Alliance president)
closely resemble those of the establishment of Byron's colony. Whether
the colony will mirror the Corps in other ways remains to be seen.

Another on-station colony, of sorts, also helped uncover a
murderous criminal: Theo's monks, who identified the bomber in
"Convictions."

Byron said his people refuse to have anything to do with
technology (except, presumably, the ships that brought them to the
station.) In some ways that makes his group the opposite number of the
technomages
("The Geometry of Shadows.")
Both achieve near-magical results, the technomages using advanced
technologies honed to an art, Byron's people using no technologies at
all. And both want to be left alone by the rest of society.
Will the two groups ever meet?

This wasn't the first time an attempt was made on
Sheridan's life following a shift in political power: in
"Ceremonies of Light and Dark,"
a gunman almost killed him in the Zocalo following B5's break from
Earth, and a ceremony celebrating the new order (the Minbari rebirth
ceremony) was disrupted.

How do Garibaldi's new job duties differ from Delenn's
as head of the Rangers? Though their presence is public knowledge
now, the Rangers have traditionally been a covert intelligence-gathering
group. Are they no longer performing that function? Will they be
reporting to both Garibaldi and Delenn, or will Garibaldi put together
a separate group answerable only to himself?

The exact workings of the Narn
naming custom are still unknown. G'Kar said that Narns pick their true
names at ten years of age, but he didn't say what that meant exactly.
He named three examples of religious persuasion: G'Quon, G'Lan, and
Na'Kiri. From that, it's possible to infer that only the prefixes of
Narn names come from their religions (G'Kar, Na'Toth, etc.) But it's
equally possible that Narns select their entire true names from their
religious texts.

Which holy books did G'Kar choose to represent humans? In
"The Parliament of Dreams,"
it was implied that humans have a far greater diversity of religious
beliefs than the other races. Did G'Kar attempt to represent all
of humanity's religions, or just the major ones? He might have had
some help from Theo's monks, who, if they're still on the station,
are already engaged in the work of cataloguing the religious beliefs
of all the races on the station
("Convictions.")

It's possible that the book
G'Kar used for the swearing-in wasn't intended to be the declaration of
principles at all, and that G'Kar is still writing the declaration.
Swearing on a holy book may be as common among alien races as it is
among humans, so G'Kar may have intended the book of holy books simply
as a ceremonial device.

The question of who controls B5 is a bit muddled.
Lochley is an Earthforce officer, but at least some of her senior
staff (Zack and Franklin) are, judging by their uniforms, affiliated
with the Interstellar Alliance. So is Sheridan, who is in some ways
her superior and in others not. The rest of her subordinates, the
crew of the station, are presumably employees of a sovereign state
until B5's final disposition is determined. Though on a day-to-day
basis this jumble of affiliations may not be problematic, it's
probably untenable in the long term. For example, if some of the
crew want higher pay, as in
"By Any Means Necessary,"
it's not clear to whom they'd make their appeal.

Sheridan and Delenn are alternating between their
quarters, apparently on a nightly basis.

Garibaldi's comparison of Sheridan to
Joan
of Arc
is another instance in which the prospect of burning in fire is used a
metaphor for imminent danger. Others are Delenn's repeated
references (following Valen) to going into darkness and into
fire, and Kosh's predicting all would end "in fire"
("The Coming of Shadows.")

As Garibaldi tried to figure out the assassin's identity,
he mused about the historical references in the message to Sheridan.
Though the error did lead him in the right direction, he was wrong
about Lincoln's assassin being a soldier on the opposite side in the
Civil War:
John Wilkes
Booth
was never in the Confederate army, though he was in the Virginia
militia for a time.

The Gaim have been around since season two (they first
appeared in
"Confessions and Lamentations")
but this episode was the first time one was shown without its helmet.
According to the
official CD-ROM encyclopedia,
Gaim ambassadors aren't typical of their species, but are specially
bred bipedal creatures engineered to more comfortably interact with
other races.

Despite the title, there were several compromises in
this episode: Sheridan and Lochley compromised over responsibility
for the station. Garibaldi took a job that's a compromise between
reenlisting and remaining a civilian. Sheridan and Delenn compromised
about their quarters.

Continuity glitch: During the swearing-in ceremony, after
the assassin was dispatched, G'Kar held out the book to Sheridan.
He was holding it in his left hand in the shots showing him from
the front, and in his right hand in the shots showing him from behind.

Possible continuity glitch: The Acheron, the ship that
brought Lochley to the station, was an Omega-class destroyer (the
type with the rotating middle section.) Later, an exterior shot
of the station showed an Earth ship nearby, but it was missing the
rotating middle section (a Nova-class destroyer.) It's not clear
that they were intended to be the same ship, though.

Effects glitch: When the Starfury is shown floating
outside the station, maintaining a more or less fixed position
relative to the window, the lateral thrusters on the right
side of the ship (from the pilot's point of view) can be seen
firing, presumably to keep up with the window as the station
rotates. Unfortunately, that's wrong. The thrusters on the
bottom of the Starfury should have been firing instead.

To see how this works, imagine B5 as a planet and the Starfury as
a satellite that wants to attain a circular orbit. To do so, it
has to get the desired distance away from the surface of the planet
(not very far, in this case, but with no atmosphere to create drag
that's fine) and move in the direction of its orbit at a high
enough speed that it's always inching away from the surface at the
same rate that gravity is pulling it down. Once that speed is
reached, no further adjustments are required; momentum will pull
it away from the planet and gravity will pull it toward the planet
and the two will cancel each other out.

In the case of the Starfury and B5, there's no appreciable gravity
from the station. So the Starfury would have to apply the same
force gravity would have supplied, thrusting toward the axis of the
station at the same rate that it was drifting away. Since the pilot's
head was facing the station (implying, incidentally, that the ship
had a slight spin) that would mean continuously firing the bottom
thrusters.

Once the correct orbital speed is in place, any acceleration in the
direction of the orbit would cause the Starfury to move past the
window. In an atmosphere, of course, the side thrusters would have
to fire just to maintain that speed, thanks to drag slowing the
Starfury down otherwise. But there's no appreciable atmosphere
outside B5, so that wouldn't have been a factor here.

Possible timing glitch: Byron visited Lochley in a cafe
and asked her to meet him in two hours. Franklin interrupted her lunch
by asking her to come to Medlab right away; she agreed and left.
She arrived in Medlab and was there only a few minutes when she
received a call from C&C reminding her
of an appointment, which (judging by the fact that it was the next
scene) was the meeting with Byron. That means it took her two hours
to get from the cafe to Medlab to the meeting with Byron. Of course,
it's possible she did something else on her way to Medlab, or that
the station's transportation systems are just that slow.

About the title
I picked "No Compromises" because that was my approach for this
season: we aren't going to give an inch on the quality of the show.

John Copeland and I just did the producer's
cut on 502, the first S5 episode...and Tracy [Scoggins] is *terrific*.
I think she's going to go over like gangbusters. It's a solid episode,
and her presence adds a great deal to the show.

BTW, saw the first pass today on the S5 title sequence,
based on my outline to the editors...looks pretty spiffy, and a big
difference from what we've done before, stylistically.

Whose idea was it to put your name on the back of the
station?
I confess it was my idea...damn taggers are everywhere...it's my one
indulgence in 5 years. Doesn't any good artist sign his work?

This in some ways is my favorite title sequence.
It took a long time to make it, and it was very difficult to assemble.
Usually I can design the title sequence on paper, and the working with
the editors part doesn't take that long...here it took a Long Time to
painstakingly choose the images, use counterpoint dialogue, pick the
high moments and make it all flow from one year to the next, sort of a
Cliff's Notes version of the history of the show. And the music is
terrific...very mature, solid sounding.

As for the back of the station...y'know, those damn taggers are
everywhere, aren't they?

In about two dozen comments so far about the S5 title,
only one has been negative, the rest loving it. It helps to place each
season for the new viewers, recaps things, hits the high points, and
the new music gives it a more mature sound. I'm pleased. (Since I
designed it, I guess I'd better be....)

Won't it confuse new viewers?
I think the newbies will be fine...unless and until you know the
context of the scenes from S1-4, they're just pretty pictures.

My local station didn't show the end of season 4.
Should I avoid season 5?
My gut reaction...because S5 starts pretty cleanly, and Sheridan's new
situation is set up right from the git-go, I think that you'd be okay to
just dive in. Not knowing at the time that there'd be any kind of
problem in the airing of the final 4, but having learned from experience
that nothing about this show is EVER easy or predictable, I did sort of
a primer about where things stand now in the top of the teaser, done
breathlessly by Corwin as Lochley arrives.

(That ain't much of a spoiler since it happens in the first few minutes
of the show.)

One note: due to the TNT ad blitz, we went into this on
the assumption that we were (and did) pick up a LOT of viewers who had
never before seen B5. These folks would need to be brought up to speed
on the returning characters and situations, and the regular viewers
would need to be brought up to speed on Lochley...so I wrote it with
that intention.

Robin Atkin Downes played Morann in
"In the Beginning." Coincidence?
We were impressed by his portrayal of Minbari, and that led to
him coming in for Byron.

Garibaldi is completely bald this season, and Sheridan
has a beard. Whose choice was that?
Jerry has been shaving his head, getting shorter each year, and
it worked for where his character is going, so I let it stay...Bruce
would love nothing more than to get rid of the beard (I suspect Melissa
doesn't like it also), but for me it's important to make the character
visually different, and to give him a more mature look, so Bruce
graciously indulges me.

We always start out slow each
season...especially in this case, knowing that we're going to get a lot
of new viewers, I structured the show so it would bring folks up to
date asap on who everybody is, and where things stand. Believe me,
there's plenty of tragedy and pathos lurking right around the corner.
It picks up at the end of the season, after some very rough things for
the characters, because I can't end it all on a downer, but at the same
time, it has to have meat to it.

"Isn't the Psi Corps still formally a branch of EarthGov? If so, then
wasn't Captain Lochley duty-bound to report Byron's people to the Psi
Cops as soon as she found out that they were rogues?"

You'll find that question answered soon enough.

About Lochley
It's easy to mistake the actor for the character in
situations like this.

It's a vastly different character from Ivanova also, not meant
to fit in the same place, do the same things, or be the same person.
They're both strong characters, but different in their approach.
Ivanova tended to be a shouter, and on the impatient side...Lochley is
a thinker, and more inclined to the blade than the ball-bat. But both
are equally lethal.

Lochley, I think, also has the maturity of character you need to
rise to the rank of captain in the military, and the voice of moral
authority, which both Sinclair and Sheridan had, in comparable
positions.

Oh, she has a sense of humor...but we don't see it
here in this episode any more than when Ivanova first came in, because
both are in new situations and that requires a certain degree of
seriousness. We'll see some of her humor along the way...it's also
different from Ivanova's, more a sly kind of humor, the sort that slips
past you and ricochets around the corner half an hour later to nail you
between the eyes.

About Sheridan
There's certainly a messianic streak running through the
character, though he himself might challenge that notion.

What is G'Kar's position now?
A lot of that will be established this season, but technically,
he's still the Ambassador from Narn.

The ship that brought Lochley was named the
Acheron
Actually, the Acheron is the river of woe....

"Does anyone know whether Byron's "The geometries that
circumscribe your waking life draw narrower until nothing fits inside
them anymore" came from anywhere. My first (rather obvious) guess was
that it was a line from Byron."

No, that was me.

Why did you name the character Byron?
It's a play on words that becomes a bit clearer later.

"Why couldn't the young telepath just broadcast his
discovery to the others, vs. having to deliver it himself?"

Line of sight.

How does Sheridan know about the telepath
war? Did he watch
"Deconstruction"
or something?
This is hardly a new plot element...this has been brewing for 4 years
now, with the growing telepath underground. As for the latter part of
that comment...did you already forget that in "Rising Star" there was a
conversation between Sheridan and Bester about the coming telepath war?

Not my fault if you're not paying attention.

Wouldn't Garibaldi believe the telepath war had been averted since
Edgars was killed?
No, Edgars wasn't trying to *start* a war, he was trying to solve it
BEFORE it started. He knew it was coming, is coming, and was trying to
give normals an edge. That edge is now gone. Again, you're
misinterpreting or misremembering what's been established and saying
it's an error on our part.

If B5 is a free port, why did Byron need to ask permission? Isn't
the station open to anyone?
Individually, yes...but again, pay attention, we're talking about a
COLONY, which means you've got several hundred people living in one
area, under one authority (Byron), with an unknown or unspecified
agenda, whose presence might bring problems from the Psi Corps and
elsewhere. So yeah, they're going to need somebody's permission.

Why did Sheridan break his promise to Lochley?
He didn't break his promise...he moved this into a political decision,
which is his purview. He said specifically, "If it's a political
problem, or involves the Alliance, it's my turf." This is a strategic
decision on behalf of the Alliance.

How can Byron project images? We haven't seen that before. It
took an entire mob of telepaths in
"A Race Through Dark Places"
to fool Bester.
Well, now you've got a contradiction. Either we have seen this before,
or we haven't seen it before. You say where did it come from, then
cite an example of where it's been seen before. And if you'll go back
and rewatch that episode, you'll see that teeps can act collectively
and be very strong.

[...] No...again, you're distorting the situation. The task wasn't
just to send an image into his [Bester's] head, it was to CONVINCE HIM
that this image had really happened, and it took a lot of them to do
this to a Psi Cop. That's why it took so many of them; he's a strong
target. It ain't the same as doing it to a normal. You're not
thinking through what you're saying.

Why don't Byron and his people just turn invisible and live on
the station without anyone knowing they're there?
Maybe because they are (or are trying to be) the good guys? Maybe
because they don't actually vanish, or turn off sound, they can
individually manipulate somebody by pressing on receptors and
distorting things like their time sense...but they're going to show up
on cameras, and on sensors, and unless they want to constantly try and
control every single person on the station in large groups as they pass
by, they're going to be discovered, and booted off the station. So
they may as well do the right thing and ask. Just because someone
*can* steal doesn't mean they *should* steal.

Besides, where are they going to live? Quarters have to be assigned,
and they're always short on space. Food has to be paid for. On and
on. Your contention doesn't make sense...they're not gods.

"That last one is what hooked me. I figured you'd be
spending the next few weeks explaining how you really hadn't broken the
cardinal rule of B5 ["No cute kids or robots"] by introducing
little Simon."

That means you went for the okeydoke...and thus didn't see the
last bit coming. That was the intent.

How did the assassin manage to position himself
outside the window so precisely?
Excuse me, folks, but he was using a B5 starfury, which is programmed
like all starfuries there to sync up with the station's rotation for
purposes of docking, ejecting, and holding position for repair purposes.
All a pilot would have to do is tell the on-board computer to sync up
the thrusters with the station's rotation, and it'd be done.

This is a no-brainer...which is why I didn't specify it in dialogue
(also it would've killed the drama of the moment).

Was Garibaldi's "it's a little crooked" comment
about the EA logo meant as foreshadowing?
No, but it was certainly meant as a subtle double-entendre, given his
recent experiences.